This was really great!
It’s quite important to keep the mechanics consistent when creating a Metroid-like, and you really nailed it. Very polished stuff, especially if this was your fist time doing something like this!
The sense of progression and the abilities offered felt quite natural. Really loved playing around with the mushroom-bounce and dash! I guess the vine-powerup was the one that felt a bit underwhelming, since you didn’t get to really use it that much.
I think I spent half of the playtime stumbling around until I found the final area. Kinda wish there would’ve been a visible counter how many spirits I’ve collected when playing.
Also, was I supposed to get here? Good thing you added a boundary down there. Was afraid that I’m gonna get myself soft-locked poking around!
The three “levels” had nice color-schemes and own varied personalities to them. Music was pleasant, and those particular arpeggiated chords reminded me of old Gameboy-Zeldas. Would’ve been cool to hear own themes in the different areas, but that would understandably be a lot of work for a jam-game.
(My own entry had literally 90% less area to explore than this, but I went and produced three tracks of music! I guess that was a bit overkill!)
Would be interesting to see a zoomed out map of the game area. It’s always fun how the sense of scale feels so different in games like this when you’re offered only a small perspective when playing.
Keep up the good work!